


there are mirrors

by entanglement



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Gen, but its still pretty ok so here u go, inspired by my fave poem walking around, this is smth i abandoned a little bit ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7973965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglement/pseuds/entanglement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>walking to work</p>
            </blockquote>





	there are mirrors

Someone cut the balls off the bull statue in the financial district last night.

Dom watches the man at the news stand down the street from E Corp's obnoxiously tall skyscraper cut the bands from the first stack of newspapers where she sees the headline: "Charging Bull Neutered". She picks up the first one he places on the stand to skim the article: No suspects at the moment, but a mention of 5/9 and a resigned tone from the article's writer seems to suggest it's another act of teenage rebellion from fsociety. Dom sighs and considers the few minutes of walking back to the subway, descending the stairs and riding the train back home.

"Looks like it's gonna storm later," the man at the stand mentions to Dom, fixing an unblinking stare towards her. She knows it's a polite way of telling her to buy it or leave it, so she places the newspaper back on the stand and turns toward's E Corp's building.

She turns back. "How do you know?" she asks.

"How do I know what?"

"That it's gonna rain?"

"Haven't you ever heard the phrase? Red skies in the morning?"

He gestures up and Dom looks to see the sky underneath the sunrise is a deep, angry red and she nods. She smiles, but when she lowers her gaze again, the man still isn't smiling.

"Right," she says, letting her expression fall.

It's a fucking shitstorm down here. Don't matter what falls from the sky." He retires into the inside of the stand as the rain begins in a light mist.

Dom lingers, staring at the POS machine perched in front of the cash register. There's a sign over the screen that says, "CASH ONLY", but the buttons beneath are worn from years of fingertips pressing into them and leaving behind the grime of human skin. She thinks of the hands that put the little machine together before it came to be here. The sparse amount of people walking by might've bought a magazine or a big of Skittles if the track data on their E Corp credit cards still had a destination, but they continue on, thinking of other places to spend their allowance that feel more meaningful. None of it will be.

She continues down the street.

The hot yoga studio a few blocks from E Corp's building has burnt down. There are boards nailed over the windows and the multicolored scribbles of graffiti and stencils bearing fsociety's mask already cover them. There's an empty lot beside it with a hole cut into the fence that used to keep people out. It's full of broken glass and cardboard, damp in the drizzling rain.

Her great grandmother lived through the depression. She used to carry a pocket knife and a canvas bag whenever she and her sisters would walk to work at the textile factory so she could cut loose the stray dandelion greens she could find growing along the side of the road. She cut off eyes from old potatoes and still ate them even when there was green under the peel and she prayed over her worn bible until the country cobbled itself back together because she was strong enough to endure.

Still, to be the witness of so much sorrow..

There's a luxury car with slashed tires sitting outside of a deli with its metal grate still pulled down over the front even though the hours show it should be open. There's a long crack in the window that's covered in clear tape, but it won't save it from the eventual shatter. It makes her want to cry for some unknown reason, but Dom digs into her bag and fishes out a lollipop. Candy always cheers her up, but it melts away like everything else eventually. She pops it into her mouth and twirls it over her tongue as she tries not to think too long on it.

There are protesters in front of E Corp's building shouting something that's not quite in unison, so it's just meaningless noise. That seems to be par for the course in fsociety's following. Shit, fsociety itself barely seems organized by design, but it's not the want for chaos that bothers Dom. It's the misguided reasoning that requires complete destruction to rebuild something better. Actually, it doesn't bother her all that much, but it's her job and she's good at her job. It feels good to be good at something.

Still, to bear all that sorrow onto herself. It suffocates sometimes. It makes her chest ache and tears sting at the corner of her eyes for reasons she wouldn't be able to explain to anyone, so she doesn't.

She pushes the glass doors open to the building and slides her badge over her belt to make it visible and boards the elevator, forcing a smile for the other agent and the small group of employees already inside.


End file.
